


The Edges of Things

by Saucery



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Aura - Freeform, Bromance, But They'll Never Get Together, Character Study, Companions, Drama, Friends With Benefits, Friendship, Heteronormativity, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Platonic Romance, Requited Love, Sad, Sexual References, Stiles Has Powers, Supernatural Elements, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Werewolves, Wistful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-24
Updated: 2013-01-24
Packaged: 2017-11-26 16:36:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/652268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/Saucery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles could see auras.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Edges of Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vickykun](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=vickykun).



> In this story, Scott got turned when he was much younger, and Stiles could see auras from birth.

* * *

 

Stiles could see auras. Colors. Around people. Strange, billowing ink-stains of color that faded into the air around their bodies as they moved. It was a sort of second sight, Stiles supposed, and it came in handy when his best friend became a werewolf at the age of thirteen and there turned out to be even more supernatural villains out there than there were kinds of fast food. Okay, no. But almost.  
  
And so, he and Scott guarded the forest, scouting it for things that were out of place - Scott, with his senses, and Stiles with his second sight - things that they either took out themselves, if they could, or called Derek for help.

And sometimes, Scott ventured out alone, when he was in heat, and called _Stiles_ for help.

It was a thing. A thing neither of them talked about, but it was necessary, so they didn't have to. During the full moon, Scott had needs - needs he had to fulfill without Allison, because he couldn't let Allison know he was a werewolf. (He'd just started dating Allison and was still in the werecloset, on account of the whole Papa-Argent-being-a-werewolf-hunter thing.)

This time, when Scott called him out, Stiles found him in a forest clearing, naked, shivering and half-transformed and snarling. His aura was flaring like a flame, an unbearable flame, that made Scott writhe and wrap his arms around himself and groan - and Stiles couldn't not help him, couldn't not reach for the fever-hot skin of Scott's shoulder and smooth a palm along it, couldn't not whisper reassurances ( _I'm here, Scott, I'm here_ ), couldn't not draw him near. Scott was tormented and full of want and pain, and Stiles just shushed him and pulled him down onto the grass, and it was comfortable and warm, even with Scott in wolf-form, because they'd been doing this for years. Ever since Scott got turned. It wasn't even like sex - well, it _was_ sex, but it wasn't  _sex_. It was just comfort and friendship and family. Like cuddles, but with orgasms. Stiles smiled a lot and murmured softly and kindly, and it was just - it was -

He was happy to be able to help, this way. But he was also filled with a slow melancholy, as he stared up at the moon, because... he didn't have this with Derek, whose aura was a blackish flame-blue tinged with flashes of red, viscous and hungry and dangerous, like something independently sentient that would devour him if he got too close.  
  
He knew that Derek wanted him - he could see that, obviously, since no one's aura had ever looked quite like  _that_  around Stiles - but he knew it couldn't happen, that it wouldn't, because Derek would never touch him. Derek would never, ever touch him, not just because Stiles wasn't of age, but because Stiles was a guy, and Derek was in search of a female mate. One with whom he could produce offspring. As the Alpha. That duty bound Derek - and his aura - as darkly and deeply as anything else. A chained beast.  
  
So it was just Stiles, and Scott, and Scott's aura calming to its usual golden hue, soft and earth-brown in places, with Stiles's hand stroking his back. They didn't kiss, or anything; that was for lovers. They were  _brothers_ , and so they just hugged each other, and Stiles cracked a few awkward jokes until Scott eventually gave in and snickered.  
  
Finally, they got up and went home, with Stiles dropping Scott off before heading back to his own place.

It wasn't even a surprise when he found Derek there, in his bedroom, all silent and strange. Derek could smell what had happened, of course; he must be smelling it all over Stiles, but he didn't say anything, because it was Scott, it was his  _pack_ , and Stiles had only done what was needed to protect the pack. That, and Derek knew he didn't have the right to say anything, and he'd gotten used to this, anyway, over the years. The Stiles-and-Scott thing. Stiles wasn't Derek's mate, but he was pack, and he was perfect that way. He was everything everyone needed. Everything the Alpha needed. Except, of course, for his sex - but that was irrelevant. Stiles was a Beta. His human Beta. And it  _worked_.  
  
And Stiles could see all of that, each emotion and each thought, plain as day, because it was all there in Derek's aura. Derek was so calmly accepting of the Scott situation that they didn't even need to talk about it; Stiles just closed the bedroom door behind him and said, "Well?"  
  
Derek had work for him, of course - research - because there was something new in Beacon Hills that needed identifying, some creature skulking about town, and after an hour or so of surfing the net and talking over his findings with Derek, he and Derek just headed out, in Stiles's Jeep, Stiles commenting that it was damn lucky his dad was working the night shift and Derek saying he'd only visited because he already knew.  
  
Right. Of course. Creeper Derek creepin' on everybody, making sure he knew where they were. Especially when it came to Stiles and everything to do with Stiles, but they pretended that wasn't the case, because.  
  
(Because.)  
  
They set off, down the road, in the type of companionable silence that could only come from knowing each other for a long time - and Stiles reflected on how ironic it was that they loved each other and knew that they loved each other, but never did anything about it, never questioned or struggled or fought. And that was fine. That was  _good_ , that was what the pack needed, and Stiles (and Derek) would do anything for the pack. Anything.  
  
That was a given.  
  
They made it to the forest with its many nondescript auras (flora, fauna; night-flowers and night-owls) and started their hunt, Derek setting out to track the scent, and Stiles following with his senses wide open, looking for a slip of a shadow or a foreign aura.  
  
Business as usual.

Derek's aura focused and narrowed as he went on the hunt, the rustle of leaves as he moved barely audible in the hush that surrounded them, a contemplative quietness, accepting of everything, that settled over them like a dome of glass, heavy and transparent.

They might find what they were looking for, or they might not, but they had each other to look _with_. That was all that mattered.

 

* * *

**fin.**


End file.
